


The Miseducation Of Chris Keller

by sahem62896



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: M/M, lardner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:50:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4844780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahem62896/pseuds/sahem62896
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick look at Chris Keller's formative years in Lardner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Miseducation Of Chris Keller

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long time since I wrote anything. Life has brought a lot to keep me busy. Not bad things, but a lot of them. It's good to be back. 
> 
> Now, you remember how the rest goes.... I own the rights to nothing and this is for fun and for free.
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _"This may hurt a little but it's something you'll get used to..." —Tool ___  
> 

I notice that the kid's face is every color of the sunset when he walks into the little space in Gen Pop where they've allowed me to keep shop. He's walking slow and funny, and his hair looks like it has been combed with a cake mixer. The crust of blood around one nostril and the fingermarks on his neck stand out in frightening detail under the harsh fluorescent light. He can't be more than seventeen, but there's a haunted look in his eyes. It's the same thousand-yard-stare I've seen before on faces as young as his during my time in the bush and also during my twenty year stretch here with a number on my shirt. You'd think that after all the violence I've witnessed (and even caused) in my time that it doesn't shock me anymore, but it does. It does even more so when I see kids like this one come swaggering into Lardner all puffed up and acting like they've got the world by the balls only to discover a few weeks later that in prison they are now the wiry little nerds whom they used to shove into lockers in the hallway of high school and rob of their lunch money... and sometimes the girls with whom they clumsily roughhoused their way to third base.

"Christ, what happened to you?" I exclaim.

One steel blue eye looks back at me, devoid of any warmth. The other one is sealed behind a puffy wall of purple colored flesh. "Need a haircut," he croaks.

"Haircut, my ass!" I cry. "You need a doctor!"

That broken face remains emotionless. "Are you one?"

I flinch a little bit, thrown off pace by the question. "Uh... no."

"No, you're the guy who cuts hair, right?" he asks.

"Well yeah, but..."

"Then give me a haircut," he says as he shuffles over to the chair. He winces and hisses audibly as he lowers himself into it. Even after he's settled in, he's still fidgeting as if he were trying to keep from shitting himself. In a way, that's probably not too far from what he is trying to do. His one open eye is fixed on the toe of his shoe.

It takes me a minute to remember this kid's name, but it comes to me eventually. "It's Keller, isn't it?"

His one eye rises to meet his reflection in the small, dirty mirror in front of him. For one instant, I see the lip that hasn't been fattened curl up into a snarl and then fall back into place. "Turn the chair the other way... please," he rasps

As I turn the chair around, I find myself feeling sorry for him. And he is not the first one that's brought this kind of pity out in me. I don't know exactly when I started getting soft around the edges when it came to these little twerps who wind up here in Lardner courtesy of some judge out there who's decided to try them as adults. It's funny 'cause I used to be right there among the hecklers and the bullying creeps in here who took such delight in shattering these kids' tough-guy images and then grinding them under our heels when they were vulnerable. I guess at some point the fun just went out of it and I began to see it for what it really was — meaningless brutality. Maybe it's because I knocked it off and have kept it knocked off for the last twelve years of my sentence that they trust me with scissors in this place. I really don't know. All I do know is that when I see them now, the only remotely violent urge that surfaces is the desire to smack them on the side of the head and ask them how fucking stupid are they for doing something that put them in here with us assholes rather than sitting in detention for throwing spitballs in class. But I already know the answer. It's the allure of fast money and the excitement of dodging the law. Consequences be damned.

Do they ever think that ending up looking like this is one of those consequences?

I bend down a bit and look him in the one good eye. "Vern Schillinger did this to you, didn't he?"

I already know the answer to this question too. Word's already been getting around about this kid. It has nothing to do with what landed him here in Lardner, but instead with what happened after he got here. You know, the typical bullshit with a slight twist. Jerome Harper, who's one of the biggest and scariest looking motherfuckers in D-Block, must have seen this young white kid swaggering in, made an incorrect assumption about who his connections were based on the kid's last name, and decided to put him in his place before he tried to get any jizz. He would have been wrong on all counts, but it doesn't matter. Rape isn't just about sex, you know. It's about humiliation and robbing someone of their power — sometimes even if they don't really have any. Quite naturally, Vern Schillinger came to the rescue of a young white brother that afternoon, but everyone around here knows that once Schillinger's involved, the whole Aryan Brotherhood is involved. But this kid didn't know that. How could he have?

If you ask me, Keller was probably fine with sucking Vern's dick for saving him, but I'm sure he didn't think he was going to end up being used as the entire Brotherhood's jizz receptacle. He's already spent a lot of time in solitary for fighting. His attackers have too, and when they come back, they're looking to even the score.

And Vern? The bastard isn't coming to the rescue now. No surprise really.

The one good eye turns to me. Keller's face is stony. "Stop asking questions and cut my fucking hair," he says icily.

There's a dry click as I swallow. He's clearly learned the most important lesson you can learn around here: snitches are bitches, and bitches turn up looking like he does right now.

I stand up and walk behind him, reaching for my scissors. "How short you wanna go, kid?"

"Short enough so that no one can grab it anymore," he answers.

He probably thinks that I didn't hear the shuddery breath that punctuates this sentence. I'm going to have to pretend that I didn't. I put aside the scissors and reach for the clippers instead.


End file.
